The early faith of the Toltecs was the adoration of the sun, moon, and stars. Especially the power (_tecuhtli_) which warmed the earth and made it fruitful, giving them thus their chief blessings, they worshipped under the name Tonacatecuhtli, to whom they offered flowers, fruits, and sacrifices of small animals. Polytheism, and the sacrifice of human beings, which was later engrafted on this simple belief by other tribes, had no part in the early religion of the Toltecs. At the end of the tenth century, when in England the Danes were beginning to trouble the Anglo-Saxons, and Ethelreds and Edreds were retreating before Canutes and Hardicanutes; when across the channel Hugh Capet had put an end to the feeble dynasties of the Carlovingian kings, and was taking for himself the crown of France, began to rule Tecpancaltzin, the eighth of the Toltec chiefs. We cannot tell what manner of court he held, whether rude or splendid. His territory stretched over large distances, and counted many flourishing cities, among them Teotihuacan, Cholollan, Cuernavaca, and Toluca. Cuernavaca, "where the eagle stops," at an elevation of nearly five thousand feet above the sea, is built upon a headland projecting into a valley between two sharp barrancas. The region is richly watered, and produces now, as in the time of the Toltecs, abundant crops. Fruits also abound there. The winter climate is delightful. The place was captured by Cortés before he laid siege to the city of Mexico. It became his favorite resort, and the valley was included in the royal reward he received for his Mexican conquests. It was here that he began in Mexico the cultivation of the sugar-cane, and here the Conquistador passed the last years of his life. Traces of the ancient civilization are still to be seen. Behind a house in the town called the Casa de Cortés is a solitary rock upon which are prehistoric carvings; on the crest of a little hill near by is a lizard about eight feet long carved in stone. Eighteen miles from Cuernavaca are the ruins of Xochicalco, before mentioned.